The Story of an Hour
Storyboard Text
-
-
- Brently Mallard's friend, Richards, had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed."
- Richards had hastened to bear the sad message. Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death. It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences.
- She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms.
- When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
- Free, free, free
- There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
- Free! Body and soul free!
- She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
- Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door
- She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought. The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes.
- She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She opened and spread her arms out. There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself.
- Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
- You will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise?
- For heaven's sake open the door.
- Go away. I am not making myself ill.
-
- Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities.
-
- There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
- Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry.
- Even though Richards did a quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife, he was too late. When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of joy that kills.
- Image Attributions:4167496 (https://pixabay.com/illustrations/open-window-window-with-shutters-4167496/) - AnnaliseArt - License: Free for Most Commercial Use / No Attribution Required / See https://pixabay.com/service/license/ for what is not allowed
-
-
Image Attributions
- 4167496 - AnnaliseArt - (License Free for Most Commercial Use / No Attribution Required / See https://pixabay.com/service/license/ for what is not allowed )
Over 30 Million Storyboards Created